Desolation. And Abundance.

EXCERPT:

The river, when functioning accordingly, is a great democracy. “River Democracy.” All are equal. All are welcome. All are held accountable to one another for sustenance. If you can’t contribute, or perhaps more specifically, will not contribute, you will not be invited back. But if you can, as I have learned, you will be welcomed into one of the greatest gifts known to humankind; the River Family.

Family has never been easy for me. I have a hard time telling my mother “I love you” (even though I clearly do), and I tend to stay immersed in the day-to-day happenings of my own life that I forget to call and check in regularly. I have never been a great sibling to my younger brothers and sister. While I love them to death, our upbringing was, at times, chaotic and unstructured.

But on the river, family is a necessity. One of the greatest joys of the river is accountability to one another. To rely on one another. To help one another. To know that we are all in this together, for better or worse. Aside from running a class III or IV, this is one of the most enjoyable yet fundamental elements of river running with a group. Adhesion and effort. But on this trip, “family” had a new dynamic because, after almost a lifetime of existence, I had just met my biological father weeks before. And though he wasn't with me physically on this river journey, his presence was very much felt.

Read the entire essay here.

Across The Gamble Oak

It has been months since his death, and I sometimes forget about him in the day-to-day goings of life. Sometimes I wonder what hurts worse; that we hurt so badly when someone leaves us, or the pain we feel when someone's memory begins to erode from our day-to-day lives. They slowly slip away as we carry on, the grip between the living and the dead slowly loosening. 

Read the entire essay here.

The Ballet of Barometric Pressure

I spent a cold afternoon in January escaping to the place I escape best - the river. It had been weeks since I had last been and I could feel the creaks and crannies of my nerves beginning to expose their restless and reckless selves. The sky was clear. A beautiful un-inversion-ed respite from the valley clogged with pollution. Modernity! 

Waders up. Rod ready. Vest strapped. Legs moving. Release.

The weather people had been telling of a storm moving in the following day, so I was eager to get my recommended allotment of Vitamin D. Not too little, not too much, lest my pale sensitive skin get burned. I wonder what my grandfather's skin would say to such a cautious and rigorous approach. I continue my hike along the river.

As I approach the first good bend, I’m instantly transfixed on the still water and any possible ripples. I’m no longer concerned about my delicate, white skin attracting unwanted advances by the sun. And then, for a while, I sip on a spiked kombucha and fixate on the panorama before me. Light ripples of water dance towards one another in an inescapable rhythm of movement, maestro’d by the hydraulics below the surface that dictate every sway, push, pull, shaking, and stretching. A true ballet. 

I’m instinctually on the lookout for the buffalo midge and its smaller, obnoxious family member the midge this time of year. While the larger of the family, the buffalo, can be somewhat easy to fish, its smaller, less virtuous cousin, the midge, is a dastardly SOB on the eyes. I do not wish to be spiteful to any member of the insect world, outside of say, the mosquito, but I mean that in the harshest way possible! 

Both members of the family have graced me with their presence today. While the wind laps on and off, their tiny bodies arrive on the surface, on cue with every pause. When the wind pauses for several minutes, I am greeted with a small feeding frenzy in the tailout of a nice run. No big fish today, but the juveniles seem riled up and active. In that moment, I am reminded of something a much better and smarter fly fisher once told me. That on the approach of a storm, when the barometric pressure starts to fall, fish (or, at least trout - I do not mean to generalize the entire lot) can sense the change and begin to stock up, as it were, on food. Nose after nose, all to the surface, hoarding themselves as to descend into an underwater hibernation until conditions return to normal. A sixth sense between the natural world and the ebbs and flows of earth and her choreographed movements. 

I am grounded by this for a moment. Still. Peaceful. Thoughtful. A cooped-up field mouse rattles dead riparian vegetation off in the distance. 

I wonder how few of us would realize such a change in our day-to-day movements and routines. That we could be so in-tune with that around us that our own earthly instincts override ambition, pride, ego, and comfort in order to maintain the harmony and balance between earth and self. To be afforded an awareness we have not had in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years - or if ever. So much of our lives spent unattached to the very environmental surroundings we were once so connected to and dependent upon. And connected, literally, to the very wrong things. 

I am contrite. I gaze up and continue to watch the poetic onslaught of trout on midge which leads me to near degradation as I feel my cellphone vibrate in my waders. 

I only hope, one day, I can be as smart as those trout.    

Our Canyon

For Rhea - Merry Christmas

There are times when I find myself with a deep sense of remorse and loss. It is often when the sun sets a more southerly course and the days become short and the night becomes long. Winter is typically cruel like that. In these moments, I’m reminded (or perhaps forced), to remember the moments spent in our favorite canyon. The laughs dance through the summer air thick as the brush around us. Our spirits fed on rising trout, warm dutch ovens, and the ancient remedy of flickering campfire flames. I take a sip of whiskey, and there we are. Plain as day. Alone in our canyon. The morning dew thick. The sun dancing on your olive skin. You are focused on reading.

At this time of year, the days are long, the air is dry, and through the trees, the frolicking dust is temporarily suspended by rays of sunlight through green pine branches. How they move in such romantic unison. Tip-tap, tip-tap, up and down. In moments like these, it is easy to peer through the prism of light and for a brief moment disappear into the wilderness. Perhaps the dust already knows this. We are amateurs in this wild place forged by millions of years of the contracting forces of water and ice where the cyclical nature of things transcends time. The dust knows this. Our souls know this - it is our place where we retreat to become one again, despite the slow march of time. Where the vile stains of the modern world erode and give way to our true selves. A place where we come back to each other. Tip-tap, tip-tap. Up and down. 

I adjust the canopy guy lines to account for the cooling night air as the sun retreats behind the western ridgeline. Taut. The shale cliff’s majesty slowly fades and gives way to shadows. To our east, the show is just beginning as we are treated to a dazzling display of reds, yellows, and pinks as the canvas of alpenglow blankets the walls. You say it’s time for dinner. I adjust the coals and catch you in a moment of unawareness from the corner of my eye. There is a smile on your face. I take a snapshot in my memory and prepare the dutchie. In a few weeks, this canyon will be empty. Any trace of us left behind as the ritual of seasons takes hold. Our own existence gets narrower and narrower. I step back and look to the walls. I wonder if the ice that filled this valley once felt the same. It’s eventual fate trickling into the flow of a small river I watch you pull trout from. “Seasons”, I say. 

We have lost much the past year. The seasons of life giving us gut punches we can never prepare for. A long Fall with much loss. Our shadows long. The trees bare for weeks now. The grasses dead. The trout difficult to get up. The squirrels and rodents long tucked away in anticipation of the ultimate death of another year of seasons. But then, sometimes, I stop. I look east and remember our canyon. Renewal sits on the horizon. 

Relationships are like seasons; sometimes they are warm and giving, others, in moments of hibernation until it is appropriate to return with full force. But the season of “us” is always alive in this canyon, whether we are together or not. If you listen closely, the laughter will appear from over a ridge. The smells from a campfire will appear and stop you in your boots. And the side-eye glace of a loved one is only a moment away. Somewhere in this canyon, the ghosts remain. Somewhere in this canyon, you and I will always exist.

***

It is early summer and a young man struggles with a staff pole. He is frustrated and weary after a long day of hiking. Dust covers his shins and sweat collects along the small of his back. But, he is steadfast and prideful to create suitable quarters. The canyon is beautiful and his girlfriend sits in her camping chair sipping a seltzer watching birds. Slllllurp. He tensions the guy lines but he has over tensioned. A line snaps. He is angry. He turns quickly, prepared to fire his anger toward to earth. He stops. A tendril of hair dances between blades of sunlight through the pine. He is awed at the beauty and struck by the simplicity. He smiles, looks at the western ridgeline as the sun slowly recedes. “Time to start the coals.”  

The Underneath (From the Zephyr)

Since I was old enough to remember, the Uinta mountain range and it’s streams and lakes have been a refuge. I remember my cousins getting shipped off (one happily, the other would’ve been happier rotting in a desert summer sun) to scouting camps and the drives to pick them up felt like entering another universe. Ahhh, wonder. What did they get to see in those dense woods? What was beyond that shale rock face? As a teenager, whenever the grips of sadness, loneliness, and in general, teenage angst hit, this place was a close friend. Family. Likewise, with the girls I met during that time, this place also meant something of the opposite of those glum feelings. Ahhhh, privacy and wonder! The peaks and valleys of the human body to be explored. The dirt roads and lakes to admire. 

Read the rest of the essay here.

Letter to a Friend/Self

Hey buddy. It’s been a while. A while since our drunken escapades. Our deep chats on the meaning of life. Of broken expectations. Longing. And suffering. I’d like to think about something else. 

Remember that 4th of July by the park? Oh, boy. The Pride parades? Remember ol Frankie? Ahhh, shit... those were the good old days. A smile comes over my face. The days that mattered, I guess. Let’s think about that tomorrow.

I swallow a feeling. It doesn’t go down well. I go to bed.

I didn’t want to think about you when I woke up this morning. But, I guess you are here. I’ll do my best. My brow furrows. I look for a feeling to swallow. Breakfast is not ready yet. 

I hiked up the mountain today. It gets me away from my head; from the people on top of each other in the city. It’s a place where, when I reach the top, I can better see the inner workings of my head. I can see the valley below. The landscape of my own mind shaped in an orchestrated grid. The air is clear because we are all homebound. Today, my anxiety lies where the Jordan River and Great Salt Lake meet. Far away. I can see it. But today, I do not feel it. A welcomed sensation; here on top of this mountain. I sit and peer south. I wonder what it was you enjoyed most about your mountains and the views you must have seen. Could you see it - the same way that I see it now? Could you see your fears, your manifestations, your worries, your dread? Could you look down and see yourself but from a better vantage? Or could you only feel the cliffs that surrounded you? I’m worried about the same cliffs more than I’d like to admit. I close my eyes, try to ground myself, and listen to the wind. It lasts only a few seconds. I feel foolish. 

I look behind me to the east. The hills look daunting on some days. On others, I want to run up those hills and shake the feeling of feeling anything at all. Escape. Distance. I wonder if when you looked east, you felt the same. I look at these hills and I think about the sun. I know, I know. Let me explain, man. With certainty, the sun is going to be pestering those very hills in the morning. They are forced into looking at their eventual fate of darkness and light. Like clockwork, nightfall will set, bringing comfort as the west gobbles up the sun. The sun which exposes their flaws. Their imperfections. Their bare spots - where nothing but sparse dry, crackling grass clings to stay alive. But, tomorrow. Tomorrow, they will be forced into another cycle of self-examination. Better to look in another direction, today, I think to myself. Don’t you agree?

I gaze north. Ensign Peak. Can you believe the Mormons wrote a hymn about that damn hill? Me neither. Must’ve seen something you and I didn’t. We never were the proselytized type, were we? I chuckle. 

Ensign Peak, eh? I let out a long slow exhale. How ironic, given the meaning of the word - “ensign”. Don’t you think? You must have been the ensign of so many in your life. A standard by which many on the outside would look up to. A flag flying brilliantly in the pristine blue and beautiful sky. A sky that today looks vastly different and violently shaken. They watched you with pride. Your girls and the women who groveled at your feet. You must have looked so mighty standing at the top of your peak. But how worn down you must have been. Battling that wind. How battered & frayed. Alone. Your sensitive nature displayed like a head on a pike.  

I head back down the trail. I do not suppose to know what it is, was, in your head that told you to go. But what I do see is the trail of tears that is left in the wake. I see the rotted portions of the souls where you left your mark. Rotted, because I do not believe this part of our soul will ever heal - or is meant to. It is not a muscle being worked back into activity. It is not a hill to climb. It is not a seedling that needs more water to grow. It is an unavoidable circumstance of life that we are left to experience. No matter the direction we gaze. 

I go to swallow a feeling. I chew it up instead. 

Young Bucks

To my dear friend,

What does it mean to be young to those of us with some lens of age, I find myself wondering. 

We are not old, by any stretch of the word. But, you and I always shared some innate, or tragic, sense of age that made us feel old. “Old souls”, the old-timers might declare from the back of a dimly lit miners bar decades before our time. Fittingly, our rights of passage passed in some Capitol Hill bar in a bygone logging town. The town of your birth. Though our drink choices probably did not merit the milestone that just passed, our freshly minted driver’s licenses did in some fitting sort of way. Cheers, I say. To be young in those times, I say. 

But still, this gnawing thought: what does it mean to be young?  

I took a drive the other day down our old dirt road. You know the one. The one that led us past the manicured lawns that are now some New Yorkers 3rd property. The road that led us from one world of spoiled mountain town kids to the land of the ranchers and working poor. The economy of a people who we only saw on the fringes. Or basketball games in Coalville or Heber. On that road, we grew up. Sneaking on to the private property for the chance at fish we probably had no idea how to catch. Camping near Mormon Flats on the occasion our parents would allow it. And later, as young adults, smoked out so high we couldn’t touch the ground. Ahh, I sit back and imagine a hit. To be young. Those damn snakes weren’t going to save themselves, ol’ Pony Boy! 

Those are probably better memories than Dear Valley and missing girls that our hearts were not meant to belong to. Jesus, we were young. I blush at the memories and energy we spent being sad about things young people were never meant to be sad about. Unsettled and restless, we were. But nostalgia is a heavy hand. Comes with a scent so memorable… memorable as those Christmas Eve cookies we delivered to friends. Hope those bastards appreciated the gesture all these years later! They probably don’t. 

But, I also remember the warming feeling of a two-egg omelet, Denver-style, precisely one biscuit (not more not less), a side (not a serving, we mustn’t be greedy, of course) of sausage gravy, crisped hashbrowns (not fucking “breakfast potatoes” like some God damn savage), OJ, coffee, and a drive down south. Warms the soul. I can still feel it. I still feel some of those meals on my aging ribs.

In many ways, there are too many memories of being young. Basketball games. Books. Hills and stickshifts. We thought we were male models. Ruber duck and all. Head-butts and a blown radiator. Remote Idaho. I’m still pretty sure, to this day, you tried to steal any girl I was interested in during our college days. Goldschläger in parking lots. Neglectful and wreckless nights in Jackson, Wyoming. Silver dorm walls and dark spaces. Bob Dylan and Dave Matthews played slowly in the background. The tapestry of a life-long friendship unfolding before our unknowing eyes. Too young to realize.

___

Something happens when responsibility sets in. When you are no longer “young” but the world around you feels younger and more plentiful than the best of nights of your youth. The world around you shows you an open oyster that could be plundered. But, we pause to consider the implication instead. We consider new things. Settling down. There is new life in the encounter of a new pursuit. Late-night calls to divulge your new-found love interest. Ohhh, the excitement that carried in your voice that evening. Lept. Bounded over the buildings that night in San Francisco so many years ago. A heart so large bursting with what if’s and what next’s. A night I will always fondly remember. A friend, now a grown man, falling in love. His burly presence rendered to gell. “Young love”, the ol’ timers might say. 

Let’s pour a glass to celebrate those times, eh, buddy? The time spent in a Calistoga pool prying for your intentions with your object of affection. I slept well that night with a belly full of good wine, good food, and the good fortune knowing my best friend would be a wed man. I slept well that night. On the hard floor of that hotel room. Dreaming of the day “Suburban 1” and “Suburban 2” would actualize. 

I was slightly less fortunate during those days with, well, let’s call them “affairs of the womanly sort”, but we never pissed away opportunities for revelry. Fine steaks. Walla Walla wines in the White House. Eating and drinking our way through the finest cities in the country. New York. Portland. Seattle. San Francisco. Miami. Nights I never wanted to end and mornings when I prayed they would. The pain always disarmed with a good laugh over morning coffee. There were days spent crabbing, Sierra Nevadas down the hatch, and methed-out, toothless groupies wanting to follow us to the nearest bar. She was lucky I never liked meth. And of course, there were those lonely Portland nights that I shudder to think how you spent them alone. A dastardly price to pay for setting a life-long plan in motion. For we were no longer that young. Prices, sometimes, need to be paid.

You were not wrong, of course. A trip down the coast. A proposal. A wedding and festivities that will live long, vibrant, and sometimes heavy, in our hearts. It can’t always be good times, as we have learned. Now that we are no longer young. But the bad helps us appreciate the good. There was my new wife, LA, our rendezvous as we built “homes” together, more cooking and more wine. The Father’s Office. Sailing. There was Alaska with its Utah jerky and uncanny Chinese food. It was nice to share a city again, eh, buddy? Boy, but it was not meant, as we both know now.  

As I sit here perched back in the city of our youth, and you headed to the city of our wife’s youth, I reflect back to my earlier question: what does it mean to be young?

___

There’s something to be said for having the privilege to look back at what’s been. Like being a plant watching itself sprout, grow, bloom, and then pause for reflection. Looking at the colors of your own glorious pedals. Friendships and relationships weaving their roots deep into the ground. Hoping that the seeds of life will mature. That the young will prosper. A gift our parents knew all too well back when we were young. An emotion that I am certain is beginning its infancy in your own heart with your own kin. We are no longer young, but our friendship is one of the proudest aspects of my life. I look back at it like that flower looking at its own beautiful pedal. And if I ever need a reminder, I will reflect back on the life we have had. The bearhug in Yosemite, the speeches at your wedding, the introduction to my wife. The holding of your children. 

Our young is no longer young. We are individually something entirely different, something more rooted. Grounded. Loved and loving. And sometimes in life, it’s nice to look back on everything that made that something what it is.   

Happy 40th to my best friend and big brother.

Love, B

Of Place (From the Zephyr)

In my limited understanding, in many Native American cultures, sense of place, and ones relation to the land they have been raised on, is considered down right spiritual. And while it is a subject I’m keen to learn more about, I do believe that this is not limited to Native Americans, but to man in general… if we pay attention to it.

_____

What is place? To me, it is a sense of what has come before you. A place where earlier versions of your DNA tried to update themselves before their shelf life expired. A place is where a young girl was born. Born into the family of hardened pioneers. Whose lineage traces back directly to those who once settled the towns of Hatch and Panguitch, Utah. Both of which, are some of the coldest places in the Intermountain West. A place where only an other worldly belief in the spiritual world could make a person believe that they should stay… in this place. Read the rest here.

No Country, For Old Men (From the Zephyr)

“I always liked to hear about the oldtimers. Never missed a chance to do so. You can’t help but compare yourself against the oldtimers. Can’t help but wonder how they would have operated these times…. I don’t know what to make of that. I sure don’t. The crime you see now, it’s hard to even take its measure. It’s not that I’m afraid of it… But, I don’t want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don’t understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He’d have to say, ‘O.K., I’ll be part of this world.’ “ – Ed Tom Bell

“What you got ain’t nothin’ new. This country’s hard on people. You can’t stop what’s coming. It ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity.” – Ellis

From the film, No Country for Old Men

____________________

Fishing

There is a spot that I like to take my buddies fly fishing along the Weber River. It’s got good holes. Swift but not too swift runs. And, hatches that are damn near legendary if you happen to find yourself in the middle of one. I never used to fish the Weber much, because it can test a person’s patience and in general, their willingness to even give the sport a chance. I once broke a rod straight in half after a frustrating day out. Read the rest here.

POINTBLANK: Progressing Progressive Evaluations of Rural Utah (From the Zephyr)

Some years back, I moved from my reasonable confines of Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. At the time, to say the least, I needed a new chapter and had found one with a woman I now call, (dearly!) my wife. What led me there? Well, that answer is either complicated or easy, depending on how you look at it. An ex-wife (long story), a recently deceased dog (Franky! I still love you, buddy! RIP), and a brother suffering from a near-fatal disease (even longer story) had me wanting and desperately needing new scenery. Read the rest here.